Gran Turismo HD Confirmed

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Sony to release first PS3 GT close to launch, true GT5 coming in '08.

By Anoop Gantayat

One of your first PS3 games may be Gran Turismo. Famitsu reports that Sony Computer Entertainment will be releasing Gran Turismo HD to the PlayStation 3 for Japanese release in December. Polyphony Digital is now slaving away at the game under the watchful eye of producer Kazunori Yamauchi, who shared some details on the game with the magazine.

Gran Turismo HD is split into two modes of play. In GTHD Premium, players get to sample a portion of Gran Turismo 5, with two brand new courses and 30 cars that fully make use of the PS3's capabilities. This mode will offer arcade-style races, but it continues the spirit of the series by serving as a "pure driving simulator." Premium mode will not have any elements of the Series Gran Turismo mode, where you earn new cars and courses by clearing events. All cars and courses will be available from the start.

Famitsu shows first screens from The Eiger Nordwand course. Assuming the shots are real-time, we can look forward to a true test of the PS3's power. The other course is, according to Yamauchi, set in a natural setting. Polyphony is looking into adding weather changes to the courses in Premium mode, making it so that rain will stop midway through a race. The magazine also has images of the Toyota Celica and Subaru Impreza rally car models from the Premium mode. The cars in GTHD Premium mode will be fully modeled not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.

The second mode of play is GTHD Classic, an online racing mode that's based off both the Gran Turismo HD demo from E3 and the PlayStation 2 beta test that Polyphony conducted a few months back in Japan. The development staff has fixed up the problems with the beta version and is even working on adding new elements.

In Classic mode, players begin with no cars or courses. New rides and tracks are added via downloads with over 750 cars and 50 courses to choose from. SCE will charge for the downloadable extras, and while pricing hasn't been finalized, we expect each car to cost between 50 and 100 yen (50 cents to 1 dollar) each. Polyphony plans on adding more cars and courses on a weekly or monthly basis, with some cars available in limited quantities. Concerns over players using real money to trade vehicles may keep car trading functionality out, although Polyphony is currently looking into the matter. Courses will cost between 200 and 500 yen apiece. According to Yamauchi, the difference in cost is due to the amount of work that goes into the course. The Nuremburg course will likely cost more, Yamauchi noted.

Polyphony is also looking into other types of downloads. Yamauchi mentioned the photo mode as one of these possibilities and the team is even looking into making parts downloadable as well. Premium mode will also offer download elements and Polyphony plans on making 30 cars downloadable via the PlayStation network platform. New courses will also become available in time. It's unclear if these will be available for free, or if we will have to fork over our yen.

Gran Turismo HD seems to be positioned somewhat like Gran Turismo 4 Prologue, a Japan-only release that offered a sampling of Gran Turismo 4 well before the final game comes out. Polyphony aims to finish up work on the true Gran Turismo 5 in 2008. But prior to that, they wanted to both show a sampling of what Gran Turismo would look like running on new hardware, and build up a full network service in time for GT5. Premium mode takes care of the former, with the latter filled up by Classic.

SCE has not commented on a US release for the game, but Yamauchi did reveal to the magazine that we can expect an overseas release at around the same time as the Japanese version.